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Composers

Johannes Nucius (c.1556-1620)

Johannes Nucius was a German composer and theorist. He lived at a time of transition between the Renaissance and Baroque periods: it was in the 17th century that the dramatic and expressive potential of music in relation to texts became paramount in the styles of most composers, and he reflected this development in both his music and his treatise. His Musices poeticae is a major treatise about compositional pract ices in the early 17th century. He was a private pupil in composition of Johannes Winckler, whose teachings Nucius claimed were the basis of his Musices poeticae. About 1586 he took his vows as a Cistercian monk at the monastery of Rauden, Upper Silesia, where he probably received the broad humanist education that appears to have influenced his later writing. By 1591 he had become deacon at Rauden and in that year published the firs t of his two books of motets, which he dedicated to his abbot. In 1598, in order to devote more time to composition and writing, he delegated many of his administrative tasks to one of the priors. In the last two years or so of his life, however, he was much involved in directing the rebuilding of the monastery and church after a disastrous fire on 22 June 1617, which destroyed more than half of the buildings. His death followed a crippling illn ess and blindness.

Although he was isolated from the mainstream of musical development, Nucius achieved a degree of fame, which was based primarily on his treatise. For example, references to him occur in Michael Prætorius's Syntagma musicum (1618). Although Nucius apparently had no contacts with a major centre of musical performance he was familiar with the music of many 16th-century composers: he referred to w orks by Josquin, Johann Walter, Senfl, Clemens non Papa, Handl, Kerle, Lassus, Vaet, Wert and others. Nucius is all the more valuable as a theorist because he was an excellent composer. His extant music, though not extensive, provides ample opportunity for comparing his provocative theoretical concepts with his own practice. It is all contained in his two motet collections, which comprise 102 pieces, 97 to Latin texts, five to German. Though rooted in the music of Lassus and other composers of the second half of the 16th century, his style is not without striking personal characteristics. As one would expect from his concern as a theorist for expressive text-setting, the motets are laden with affective musical devices, both to enhance the general emotional content of the words and to emphasize and illustrate particular words and phr ases.

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